A Glance at LABEL

Tate LABEL marked one of the last large GBAD events of the year, taking over Tate Britain with collaborative creativity and pumping baselines. The Great British Art Debate and Tate Collective spent a joyous day repositioning how artists can represent Britishness whilst working in response to the Family Matters Display.

The day saw gallery visitors take part in a host of workshops run by Tate Collectives aimed at getting people to be critical and creative. The day started with a series of lively street art workshops, reworking traditional emblems of Britishness led by Soulful Creative.

Meanwhile other members of the crowd were drawn into Union Slack, a workshop encouraging people to create their own alternative British flag in mosaic.

In the gallery space, artist Tracey Moberly presented a mass participation project, bringing in a range of art and artists from across the country to contribute to a projection piece. Images submitted challenged ideas of the family in contemporary Britain and included some deeply personal work.

As dawn fell, the Duveen Galleries hosted live acoustic sets by Shakka and Speech Debelle, followed by a Great British Art Debate discussing how family and Britishness influenced creativity.

Later DJ Stooki Sound took over the historic collection with reverberating baselines and was joined by performance artists from Spartacus Chetwynd’s Turner Prize installation.

In addition Tanya Boyarkina and fellow Tate Collective’s created a homage to sound artist Alvin Lucier’s ‘I Am Sitting In A Room’ (1968), by exploring the transformation of spoken language in Britain. In this 30 minute soundscape, recordings of Tate Collective’s members speaking Yoruba, Patois, Dutch, Spanish, English and Russian were repeatedly played back and re-recorded within the gallery walls.

To the sound of these reverberations, Artist Diana Kolawole hosted a roaming photography workshop inviting people to investigate their inner child by producing a series of prop assisted portraits. These snapshots intended to show visitors that they can access childish exuberance no matter how old we are.

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I'm a disabled amateur painter, so can't visit the Tate, but would love to know more about Mary Beale..Who taught her? Why did she paint on paper? Is there a book about her life and painting techniques? I'd be grateful for any other information you can offer. Thankyou!Lesley Scott on Help us decide what we hang at Tate Britain!

Dear Emma,
We enjoyed the Schwitters in Britain exhibition very very much and wondered whether any preservation work has been carried out on ‘Ja – Was? Bild’ (page 80 in the catalogue). This dates from 1920 and contains corrugated cardboard. The reason I ask is that I use corrugated cardboard as a medium for my sculptures and I am constantly asked 'How long will it last for?' This is the oldest artwork incorporating corrugated cardboard that I have come across, so I'd be most grateful if you could throw some light on this, if you ever get a minute to spare. Thanks for a wonderful exhibition.
sincerely
Josettejosette carroll on Curator Emma Chambers on choosing works for Restless Times